


The Time Traveller's Wife

by confused_pandbear



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Time Traveler's Wife Fusion, Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/M, I mean a lot of smut, Time Travel, m-rated
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:28:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22830256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/confused_pandbear/pseuds/confused_pandbear
Summary: Time Traveller's Wife AU. Gou has known Haru for as long as she can remember, his presence in her life a constant ever since he saved her from drowning in the local pool when she was just four years old. Haru, however, doesn't officially meet her until he is twenty-six, and his life hasn't been the same ever since.
Relationships: Matsuoka Gou & Nanase Haruka, Matsuoka Gou/Nanase Haruka, Matsuoka Gou/Yamazaki Sousuke
Comments: 5
Kudos: 33





	1. Prologue

  
**GOU.**

— The first time I met Haru?

I was four years old and Rin was almost six.

He had just started school and had joined the swim club, and was at that age where it was no longer cool to be seen hanging out with your kid sister.

Swimming came naturally to Rin, and not so much to myself, but I would still beg my mother to let me tag along to his lessons every Sunday afternoon, even though the furthest I ever got was in the paddling pool area, never submerged higher than my ankles.

Of course, at that age, I wasn't allowed to join Rin in the 'adults pool' – even if I wore my armbands – because I was a baby and 'babies should stay in the babies pool'.

This was apparently the worst insult you could ever deliver to a stubborn four-year-old girl, and quite frankly, I didn't see what the huge deal was. My brother and my father, at the time, always made it look so easy.

I remember asking for a drink and taking advantage of my mother's two-minute absence to look for a vending machine to go and find my brother. He was at the starting end of the vast, Olympic sized pool, neatly quartered into lanes and was too busy goofing around with his buddies to take any notice of my arrival.

I remember being able to see the bottom of the pool as I peered over the edge of it, unable to comprehend at that age that the rippling water skews with your depth perception and the floor only appeared to be closer than it actually was.

I remember lowering one chubby leg into the water and just past the knee, before slipping on the damp tiles and sinking like a stone.

Not long after, I was blinking up at the tiled ceiling of the local leisure centre pool, water from my sopping wet hair still dripping into my eyes and Nanase Haruka was staring down at me with an expression of relief writ across his handsome face.

He must have been around the late twenties, early thirties here.

His eyes were clear and blue.

I couldn't remember what he was wearing, but going by the fact that my mother thought he was a lifeguard later lead me to the conclusion that he had stolen a uniform and had been called upon for help when I had gone missing.

She had wanted to thank him again before we left, but by then, he had disappeared.

She even asked Coach Sasabe, Rin's swimming instructor, where he was but was told with much confusion in his tone that: "no one of that description worked as a lifeguard at the pool."

The second time we met was at my fathers funeral, just over a year later.

Haru was noticeably older then, that even my preschool-aged self questioned how someone could age so much in a year.

He had salt and pepper hair and was dressed in dark green overalls, pretending to tend to the weeds and fallen leaves in the cemetery grounds.

I slipped away mid-service and he smiled at me as if I'd known him all my life.

"Hey, Kou," he said, as I approached.

"Hey, mister," I sniffed. "Can't you try to save my daddy too?"

* * *

**HARU.**

— First time I met Kou?

Officially: it was the first of April and the first day of the school term, and I thought that she was part of a very elaborate April Fools Day prank.

Back then, I was teaching at my Alma Mater, Hidaka University.

As an undergraduate, I had enrolled on a swimming scholarship but could no longer compete after college level due to a certain genetic condition that would cause me to inconveniently time-travel right before big competitions.

But unlike most of their student-athletes, I was good at studying. And so to stay out of the limelight and high-stress situations, my teachers figured that I would be better off suited teaching a hundred students once a week instead.

It wasn't a bad gig. It paid well and I got to use the pool whenever I wanted, and nobody would ask too many questions when I sometimes disappeared for days on end.

She had walked into my class that morning and was standing, frozen on the stairs of the tiered lecture hall and getting jostled by her fellow students clambering for seats.

The image has been burnt on the backs of my eyelids, and I remember it so well because she was crying.

Not in the way that you would after a break-up, where there are sobs in your throat and a pain in your chest; or during a sad movie, face crumpled and head in your hands, unable to watch as the plot unfolds.

They were the kind of tears that fell without you realising it; tears that clung to the lashes of her ruby-tinted eyes, until they became too heavy and slid gracefully down her cheeks, pooling at the point of her chin.

She stood there, gaze fixed on mine for what felt like an eternity until a blonde friend of hers grabbed her elbow and tugged her out of the way.

By then, the only empty seats next to each other were in the front row.

I took register.

"Matsuoka…" I peered down at her name. "Kou?"

"H-Hai!"

I frowned.

"See me after class."


	2. Part I: Boy meets girl

**GOU. — _Gou is 20, Haru is 26._**

Haru's office is nothing like I imagined it to be: small, cramped and obviously neglected going by the plants that lined the windowsill, all at varying stages of dehydration.

But upon consideration, it makes sense to me; because even though his name plaque is newly tacked on the front of the door, I could not imagine him wanting to spend too much time confined in a tiny, stuffy space.

The 'Haru' I knew liked to be free.

At the end of the lecture, Nanase Haruka-sensei had surreptitiously signalled for me to go ahead and wait for him in his office whilst he dealt with the line of female students and their 'questions' about today's class.

I am inspecting his bookcase, running a light finger over the spines of marine biology textbooks by the time he walked in, looking flustered and looking as if he wasn't expecting to find me, standing in the middle of his office.

Hastily, I replaced the photo frame of him and his high school swim team and bow low as an apology.

"Matsuoka-san. Sorry to keep you waiting," he said, sliding into the seat behind his desk whilst I assumed mine on the opposite side.

He leans comfortably back into his office chair, elbows rested on the armrests and he is Haru has I've always known him: tall, lean and staggeringly handsome.

His hair is as dark and as thick as it looks, falling softly into his blue eyes. I remember how I used to run my hands through his hair with his head on my lap as we sunbathed, brushing out the tiny droplets of water that had clung to the ends from his last dip in the ocean, back during those summers when he used to visit me in Iwatobi.

The urge to reach out and touch his cheek, to confirm that he's really there, in front of me, in my present, is so hard to resist, I decided it best to sit with my hands tucked underneath my thighs.

There is something different about him though and that is, of course, the way in which he surveys me without expression – with a little suspicion – and without the usual love and familiarity that we always shared.

He gives me a deliberate once over, gaze drifting south from my face, eyeing me in that way men do when they're imagining what a woman looked like without any clothes on.

I seem to have met some sort of criteria when he asks:

"Do I _know_ you?" in an insinuating way.

Blood fills my cheeks before I can help it.

I'm not sure whether to nod or shake my head so I do nothing instead.

"It seems like we've met..." he continued, slow and calculated, "but I'm sure I'd remember..."

I force an understanding smile.

"Does this happen to you a lot?"

He closes his eyes briefly and shakes his head.

"More than I'd like it to."

My heart breaks, all over again it seems, recalling how he once told me how the travelling takes its toll: how it wasn't as magical as a younger me made it out to be.

When I pressed him on the topic, Haru said that it was difficult for him to keep stable relationships, make friends or plans for even the nearest future because he could never be sure where he would be next.

He often wished that he were a normal person – wished that he were ordinary, just like everyone else. He craved stability, a constant in his life, and I realise then that he's been waiting for me – just like I've been waiting for him.

_It's ok_ , I want to say. _I'm here now._

"This is going to sound strange," I went with instead. "But I've known you my whole life."

I lower my voice and lean my whole upper body forward in my seat.

"You time travelled to my hometown, throughout various stages of my childhood," I explained, all whilst watching for his reaction carefully. "Most of the time you were older, so I guess that's all still to happen for the you right now, so…"

I explained how I had first met him at age 4, how he saved my life and how I looked forward to his visits as a child because I thought that he was my guardian angel or something similar.

As I grew older, he would divulge more and more information with each visit, until one day he told me what he truly was and where he came from.

A time traveller, and one from my not-so-distant future.

"And what exactly did I...say–" he said, throat flashing. "–During these visits?"

I hesitated before answering, the reality finally settling in that the man sat in front of me – someone who looked so much like the person who I spent my entire childhood getting to know – had no idea who I was.

And for the first time in our relationship, he was the one with all the questions.

I bit my bottom lip to hold back a smile.

"It's a long story," I say. "Would you like to hear it over dinner tonight?"

* * *

**HARU. — _Haru is 26, Gou is 15._**

We decided to meet at eight, at a local Italian place not far too from her student accommodation.

I'm a little reluctant to be going somewhere so close to campus because I'm not sure what the rules are when it comes to dating a student – though I sternly remind myself, after this thought, that this is not a date – but simply dinner and conversation between two, consenting adults.

I say this, whilst I changed my outfit for the third time that evening.

By seven o clock, I've decided on dark jeans and blue shirt, though I don't know why I bothered because just as I am reaching for my shoes – I am gone, only to emerge in a different place, a different time, where the skies are blue and the air smells like salt and sea.

The side effects of time travelling include: temporary loss of vision, violent nausea and most embarrassingly, butt-nakedness, but luckily there's a pile of neatly folded clothing, waiting for me on a moss-covered rock on a sandy alcoved beach.

I'm too grateful to question why it's there or who it belongs to and am tugging on the old pair of corduroy trousers just as Kou appears on the horizon, a picnic basket in tow.

She waves like she's expecting to see me.

"Haruka-senpai!"

Her pretty, yellow dress is dancing in the wind around her knees and when she stops in front of me, I realise that she's two inches shorter than she was when I saw earlier today.

She peers up at me in all of her youthful exuberance.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asks, and I realise that my mouth is hanging wide open.

"It's just–" I manage, after relocating my tongue. "–I mean, I just met you for the first time today and now you're…"

"Oh! So this is the first time the real-time you has come to visit me," she says, forehead wrinkling. "Gosh, this is getting confusing, isn't it…?"

The absurdity of it all phases her for a grand total of thirty seconds before she settles herself down onto the sand and begins unpacking her basket of treats.

I stare at her crown of red hair, wondering if I missed something.

"Hey, um, Kou," I say, taking a crossed legged position in the opposite corner of the picnic blanket she had carefully laid out for the both of us. "Where are we?"

"Iwatobi," she answered, then explaining after the confounded expression: "it's a town a couple of hours outside of Tokyo. I've lived here my entire life."

She grins at me again and I shake my head, realising that the life that she describes doesn't seem to be very long at all at this stage.

"And how old are you right now?"

"Fifteen. And you?"

"Twenty-six," I say, and her head tilts as she looks at me.

"I thought you looked younger," she replies, as if we're discussing something as trivial as a recent haircut, and hands me an assorted plate of white-bread sandwiches, mini-pizzas and crisps.

"Thanks," I take it, but considering everything else I have to ask, lay the plate down by my knee instead. I explain, after her concern: "I don't want to eat too much. We're about to go for dinner – back where I'm travelling from."

_If I make it back in time._

To my surprise, Kou nods in a knowing way.

"Are you nervous about dinner? Is that why you travelled?" she says, and for the second time that day, I am amazed by the girl in front of me, one who is so assured and so comfortable by my side as if she's always belonged there.

There are few people who know about my 'condition' and even fewer who actually believe in it.

I learned early on in life that it was always easier to lie, to adults, to friends, and to end things with frustrated past girlfriends who would rather believe that my reason for disappearing was because I no longer loved them, rather than tell them the truth.

But Kou is different. She looks at me the way she did in my office earlier: like she knows me both in and out, and everything she knows doesn't bother her in the slightest.

I pick at my food to stall my response.

"Maybe..."

Kou smiles, all of a sudden demure.

"You said to me before you tend to travel whenever you're stressed or upset," she recounts, almost proudly. "But...you know, you shouldn't worry too much about tonight, Haruka-senpai…"

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and I can see that she is blushing.

"...It all works out in the end, right? You said that we were happily married in the future, after all."

And I choke on a mini pizza.

"Whoa! Haruka-senpai?" Kou claps at my back unhelpfully. "Are you ok?"

Spluttering and pounding a fist into my chest, I finally manage to dislodge the food from my throat and swallow it down.

My voice is hoarse and there are tears in my eyes:

"Hey, um...Kou?"

"Yeah?"

"Go easy on my tonight, ok?"

* * *

**GOU. — _Gou is 20._**

Later that night, I am struggling to reach the zipper of the dress that I am planning on not to wear. After trying a manoeuvre that involved twisting my whole upper body, I somehow end up in a painful collision with a lamp.

My roommate, Mikoshiba Isuzu, appears at the doorway to investigate the commotion.

"Wait – where are you going, looking all pretty and dressed up?"

Out of breath at this point, I motion for her help in exchange for the information and her jaw drops to the floor when I tell her that I'm going out for dinner with a guy and have no idea what to wear.

(You would have thought that with literal years of advance notice, I would have prepared an outfit for the first date with my future husband, but apparently that wasn't the case.)

Finally freed from the constraints of what can only be described as straight-jacket-couture, I turn to face the girl who can't stop staring at me as if I've grown another head.

I flicked at the hood of her baseball cap because I know it annoys her the most.

"Stop looking at me like that, it's not that big a deal."

"Not that big a deal?" she parrots, fixing her hat. She follows after me when I proceed to raid my wardrobe for the umpteenth time. "I'm supposed to just sit back and ignore the fact that 'Miss I'm-too-good-to-be-dating'–"

"–Hey–!"

"–has, all of a sudden, found someone worthy of her affections?"

She says this, whilst jumping on the end of my bed and hugging a throw pillow to her chest.

Despite her teasing, there are stars in her eyes and I can tell that she is genuinely excited for me.

I've only known Isuzu for two years since we were paired as roommates, but she quickly joined the ranks of the close friends and family who were constantly questioning why a 'nice young lady' like myself had never been in a relationship before.

It wasn't as if I didn't want to or were ever given the chance.

It's just that I had grown up watching my friends stumble through the intimacies of adolescence, first dates and heartbreaks, and had never looked at them with envy because I had something better than the uncertainty of falling in love: I had Haru, and he was guaranteed.

When I don't respond for a minute or two, Isuzu stands from the bed to hug me tight and confesses that she's happy for me.

I'm startled at first but a second after, I feel my eyes start to prick – because no matter how much I surrounded myself with friends, with amazing people like her, I was always incomplete somehow, so much so that she had noticed it too.

I sniff, and with a smile that mirrors mine, Isuzu holds me by the shoulders to openly scrutinises whatever I've decided to try on next.

"In any case, you need to be wearing something a little more memorable tonight...!"

Without explanation, she gallops to her room across the hall and returns with the dress she had bought to wear at her 21st birthday party – the one that never got to see the light of day because her older brother took one look at her in it and told her to go back upstairs and change.

I outright refused to wear something of hers that was basically brand new but Isuzu being Isuzu wouldn't back down until I at least tried it on to see if it fit.

With her slim, athletic body and model-like height, the dress had skimmed her angles tastefully and fell inches above her knees. It had cost more than she was willing to admit but claimed that the price was worth it being a 'versatile' dress that could be dressed up or down depending on the shoes she wore.

On me, the dress clung but to all the right places and the skirt ended at a slightly more conservative length, just above my knee. This modesty however, was made up for by the low cut neckline, accentuating my chest far more than it had on Isuzu considering my size.

I smoothed the material over my hips and turned in the mirror to inspect the outfit from several angles.

I feel like a million dollars, but a part of me was still unsure.

"...It's nice but...don't you think it's a bit too much for pizza at _Carletti's_?"

"It is," Isuzu beams. "It's perfect!"

* * *

**HARU. — _Haru is 26, Gou is 20._**

By some miracle, I'm only fifteen minutes late by the time I spot Kou from across the street, leaning against the wall outside of her chosen restaurant.

She senses my presence before I can call out to her, and relief on her face is hard to miss.

I approach without an excuse.

"Sorry. I got...held up."

I say it in a way that only she could expect to understand and she graces me with a compassionate dip of her chin and asks if I'm hungry or if I was feeling too nauseous to eat.

She was right: my insides were spinning, but for different reasons.

I've seen and done a lot of strange things, but I was still getting my head around this girl that I barely knew and the secrets that we already shared.

When we enter the restaurant, she hands her coat to the waiter and I want ask her to keep it on because immediately, all male eyes turned on her.

But it's not as if I'm not staring shamelessly at her too: at the way the dress clings to her every curve and how her hair, tied away from her face, exposes the graceful curve where her neck met her pale, naked shoulder.

The mental image of sinking my teeth into that spot whilst I moved inside of her invades my thoughts before I could help it.

"Table for two please," she says to our ogling host, and I find myself my straying as close to her as I dare, without physically touching her and claiming her as my own.

She requests a booth right at the back of the restaurant, which I am thankful for given the distance from the rowdy student crowd and the darker, more intimate lighting aided by the cover of the leather, high backed seats.

I'm about to attempt small talk when she begins unpacking the contents of her handbag without an explanation: fanning diaries, notebooks, letters and drawings across the table between us.

Our waiter returns with the menus and our drinks and hesitates on where to put them.

"What is all this?" I ask when he is gone with our orders – the 'Flying Hawaiian' (for me) and a Four Cheese calzone (for Kou).

She looks unprepared for my question, like one of my students when I single them out in class.

"Oh, they're...just some things I kept throughout the years," she explains, fingers trembling slightly as she picks up the nearest notebook and begins leafing through its pages. "I wrote down all the dates you came to see me in here. I – um – figured that you'd want some proof that I wasn't making this all up..."

She hands me one of the diaries and from in between it's pages, a Polaroid photograph fell onto the table between us, dated from over five years ago.

I stare at it, at a loss for words.

It is not the surrealness of seeing an image of my older self, because I have met him a handful of times before and had long gotten used to my eventual appearance as a 30-to-40 something-year-old man.

It was the fact that I hardly recognised the expression on my face in that photograph, propped up on my elbows on that sandy beach with Kou. The sun was beating down on us, gauging from the glare on the lens and the slight squint in our eyes. Her arm was outstretched, holding the camera to face us and we are smiling.

I look happy. I look _free._

After a moment of tense silence, I shake my head and slide the books and the photograph with it back in her direction.

"I don't need proof," I explained, after her anxious expression. "I know who you are. I met you today, on a beach somewhere. You were–"

"–Fifteen? I remember now..."

She winces, knowing that she's done the contrary when looks her spread and adds:

"Yeah, you told me to go easy on you..."

I've always been self-conscious of my laugh — maybe because I don't do it often that people tended to stare whenever I did, but in spite of everything, I can't help but fall back into my seat and erupt.

Kou freezes, momentarily mortified, until she looks down at the table full of her mementoes and her face splits into a smile. Soon, we're both shaking our heads and wiping the tears from our eyes at the insanity of it all.

By the time our meals arrive, she has stowed away all of her 'proof' and we try our best to act like two people who've just met for the first time that day.

"I had a great time tonight," she says, as we step back out into the cold evening, ambling our way down the streets of Tokyo.

It was getting late, and after asking how she is planning on getting home, we head to a bus stop back to campus and are caught in the sudden April rainfall just metres away from the shelter.

We are laughing again, and I am shaking the rain from the arms of my jacket when Kou reaches out to me: her fingertips lightly brushing away the dampened hair that was sticking to my forehead.

She must have felt me tense because she makes to pull away almost immediately.

"Sorry," she whispers. "It's a habit."

After a seconds contemplation, I do the same to the stray strand of hair by her cheek and tucked it behind her ear.

The contact makes her exhale shakily, breath visible in the cold night and causing my gaze to zero in on her lips.

And that was when I decided to kiss her: and it feels like the rest of my life has just begun.

* * *

**GOU. — _Gou is 20, Haru is 26._**

"WHAT THE FUCK, HARU?!"

From all the years spent fantasising what it would be like to finally be with Haru, the one thing I had not anticipated this.

The evening before was more perfect than I could have imagined.

After an awkward start (which was completely my fault), dinner had arrived and I was soaking up everything Haru told me about himself like a sponge.

I asked him about all the things the Haru who had visited me never talked about.

Without restraint, he spoke of his friendship circle, his childhood, and his parents, who died in a car crash when he was eight. He had lived with his maternal grandmother until he went to university to swim, but eventually had to give that up because he kept time-travelling before (and sometimes even during) races.

As we walked, eager to extend our time together, I told him things about myself, which felt strange because the Haru I had always known almost everything about me.

It was getting late, and it had started to rain.

Haru decided it was time to head back, and just when I thought he was going to leave without as much as a kiss goodnight, he hails a cab and spends the entire ride back to his place with his lips on mine and his hand underneath my skirt.

We were disturbed the next morning by the sound of a key slipping into the lock of the front door.

I am far too spent from the evening's activities to distinguish whether it was a dream or a figure of my imagination until the sound is followed by the creak of the door's hinges and footsteps coming down the hall.

She screams at the sight of me and just like that, we're wide awake.

"WHO THE HELL IS SHE?!"

Haru goes to greet her but is deterred by the belated realisation that he isn't wearing any clothes.

There is a pink tint to his cheeks as he holds the bed sheets to his waist.

"Zaki," his voice cracks. "I was just...we are...what are you doing here?"

I find myself cringing on his behalf, though I'm sure I wouldn't come up with a better response in such a situation.

"Seriously?" the woman shrieks. "You gave me a key to your apartment last week, you sick fuck!"

Not sure what to do with myself, I sat up against the headboard of Haru's bed, careful to keep the sheets tucked underneath my chin. The movement tears the woman's attention away from Haru for a split second and there a flicker of recognition in her eyes.

I blink, realising it too.

"Yazaki-sensei?"

She does not respond, her mouth hanging open for a good five seconds before turning her wrath on Haru once more.

"Oh my god, Haru. She's a _student_?!"

"Zaki, wait. I can explain..."

Yazaki-sensei retreats back down the narrow hallway and towards the exit, and by now, Haru has scrambled into a pair of boxer shorts and is hot on her tail.

Before he leaves, however, he stops to look at me as if to plead: _can you at least put on something?_ so I begrudgingly head to the bathroom with an armful of clothes.

The effort makes me realise how much my body aches in the most delicious way, my skin prickling at the ghost of his lips against my neck and on my chest.

Haru is much more demanding than I thought he would be, and a lot more energetic too — but I am sure I would have enjoyed the recollection of our evening together a lot more if not for the fact that I could hear him and his girlfriend's heated argument clearly from the other room.

_"Is this where you've been, all those times you disappear off the face of the earth...?"_

_"Look, I was gonna tell you..."_

_"...You said that you were serious about me this time..."_

_"Zaki, I'm so sorry but..."_

_"I should have never believed you...!"_

There is a pang of guilt I know shouldn't be there, clutching at the base of my throat.

I dressed quickly but decide to stall my re-emergence as voices rise higher in the other room. To kill some time, I inspect the cupboard behind the bathroom mirror and find myself, once again, in another woman's territory.

Amongst the usual men's toiletries of shaving foam and woody-cashmere cologne, there is a whole shelf dedicated to flower-scented deodorants and pink razor blades and I feel physically sick.

I slam the cupboard close and am faced with the sobering image of my morning reflection: hair unkempt, yesterday's makeup slouching in my cheeks, and every insecure thought I've ever had returns to haunt me.

I always thought I was too short, too pale, and that I could do with losing a few pounds. I wished my eyes weren't such a strange colour and that I was bold enough to do something different with my hair.

Haru has always been the embodiment of my perfect guy for as long as I could remember. I had been waiting for him, for this day for years, and I only assumed that he was waiting for me too.

Looking back on it now, it was a silly assumption to have made.

Haru was gorgeous by anyone's standards, and Yazaki Aki was the head coach of the university's women's swim team and was smoking hot.

I had seen her a couple of times before when I went to cheer Isuzu at swim meets and competitions. Her hair was a glossy chestnut that complimented her large, wide-set eyes.

And because she sometimes competed herself and coached for a living, she had an absolutely killer body too.

They were a handsome match, and if he wasn't the love of my life, I probably would have shipped them myself.

I grit my teeth and willed myself not to cry.

I was being stupid.

There was nothing to worry about.

I was Haru's wife. I'd been so sure of that fact almost my entire life.

But even so, I crossed the hall, grabbed the rest of my things and slammed the front door as I left, just to let him know that I'm pissed.

* * *

**HARU. — _Haru is 26, Gou is 11._**

"We don't get off to a good start."

"Oh?"

It's almost a week after the train wreck that was our first date and Kou still refuses to speak to me.

Despite my best efforts, she does not answer my texts and calls and sends her roommate to the door when I turned up at her apartment, always to politely tell me to fuck off.

And as expected, she did not turn up to class the following week, either. I send her an email as her professor, expressing my concerns.

Defeated, I am walking back to my office with a stack full of papers that I need to grade when I realise that I'm about to go.

There is no logical explanation for how or why I time travel, and no warning or pattern of when it is about to happen.

Today, it feels like pins and needles under every inch of my skin, and feeling myself and my surroundings dislocate, I threw myself into an empty classroom before disappearing and materialising on the beach, back in Iwatobi.

Kou is younger here.

By the time I arrive, she's already sprawled out on the picnic blanket, waiting in our little alcove for me.

I'm without a stitch of clothing once again, but she must have seen it all before because she doesn't even blink.

I wonder what sort of psychological damage I've done to this girl when she points at the pile of clothes she's brought for me with marked disinterest, and by the time I shake the sand off the joggers and pull on a shirt, she's engrossed in a vintage copy of _Monthly Muscle Magazine._

I see that her intense appreciation for muscles far succeeds myself and has been cultivated from an early age.

"Hey Kou," I ask. "How old are you?"

She's on her stomach, legs kicking behind her.

"Eleven and a half," she says and deals me a sideways glance. "Where are you coming from?"

"A couple of days after our first date, in the future."

Kou sits up as if I've finally piqued her interest.

"How did it go?" she asks me with eager, shining eyes, and an irrational part of me wants to lie and tell her that it went fantastically, that she's head-over-heels for me and we're planning the wedding already.

I decided against this in the end, because it was probably best I didn't build my future marriage on lies.

"I think I disappointed you," I sighed instead. "I'm not the dream guy she always thought I was."

Kou tilts her head at me. "What did you do?" she asks, and I refrain from rolling my eyes.

Typical, it was obviously _my_ fault.

Even though I had no idea she existed like a week ago.

"Let's just say that I was having such a good time, I...let something important slip my mind."

There is a sadness in my tone that surprises me, because I barely knew the girl a day or two but she already meant so much.

She was a certainty, she represented everything I was afraid I would never have. I could not believe a girl like she was in love with me — and knowing everything she knew, would still want to marry me as well.

"It will work out," the young Kou pats my arm reassuringly. "I've met you when you're much older than you are now, and you said that we're still happily married."

I force a smile that is fed off of her innocence and optimism.

"Thanks, that's...good to know."

She beams back at me and as if to say that her work here was done, she turned back to her magazine and left me to appreciate the calming scenery of the Iwatobi pier.

"Hey, Kou," I ask, after twenty minutes or so. "Do you have any tips on how to get on your good side again?"

The girl pouts, placing a finger on the tip of her chin.

"Hm. Well, my favourite flowers are roses."

* * *

**GOU. — _Gou is 18, Haru is 35._**

I'd graduated high school without going on a single date, enduring for the majority of my teenage life, my classmate's speculations on my love interests and sexual orientation.

The most common conspiracy theory was that I had a secret boyfriend, but he was not one of the guys that went to our school. Maybe he was college-aged or maybe he was a criminal.

Maybe he was actually a _she_.

I laughed to myself all this time because kids have wild imaginations, but none of them could ever conjure up the existence that was Nanase Haruka.

I had seen him, for the last time earlier this year on my eighteenth birthday. He told me then that I wouldn't see him again until I was twenty. I had cried in his arms until there was nothing left but a pile of my brother's old clothes.

My high school graduation ceremony rolled around months later, and I found out that I had gotten into my chosen university the week before. Haru always tried to keep our conversations about the future spoiler-free, but he did advise sitting the entrance exam for Hidaka in Tokyo.

I should have been relieved, excited that I had passed another milestone closer to my life with Haru, but in all truth, I was utterly depressed. Even Rin's surprise visit from Australia to attend my graduation hadn't lifted my spirits.

After posing for photos and throwing my cap, I excused myself to use the bathroom and made my way back into the school building for one last time.

The hand driers were out of order and they were out of paper towels too, so as I am crudely wiping my hands on my graduation gown, I almost jump out of my skin when Haru at thirty-something appears on the other side of the bathroom door, a bouquet of roses in his arms.

He has procured a male student's green gym tracksuit, and I can't help but think that it suits him.

"You said you weren't visiting again," I say, when I can't bring myself to say anything else, and he grins, pleased that he has duped me and kisses me gently on the cheek.

"I wanted to surprise you," he said, finally handing me the beautiful bouquet. "Congratulations, Kou."

* * *

**HARU. — _Haru is 26, Gou is 20._**

"Nanase Haruka. You have got some nerve, asking me for favours after what you did last week."

Like a coward, I stood in front of my sort-of-ex-girlfriend and brace myself for a slap across the face.

Luckily, Zaki manages to restrain herself. I had tactically approached her during afternoon practice, and she knew better than to make a scene in front of her third-year students.

Still, she flares her nostrils at my request and I swear the clipboard under her fingers cracks in two.

"I thought I recognised her," she says, in a way that causes my throat to contract. "Mikoshiba Isuzu's roommate. She comes to her races and sometimes turns up after practice."

I have nothing to say to that so I keep quiet, wary of her every move.

For a moment, she averts her attention to the lines of swimmers doing their warm-up laps, then turns back to me with a disapproving stare.

"She's _young_ , Haru."

I blanched.

I came here expecting to be brutally attacked within an inch of my life, but I had not prepared myself to be judged.

So I say, with a little bite:

"Six years is hardly robbing the cradle, Zaki."

"Well, what she lacks in maturity, she clearly makes up for in something else," she replies, quick with wit and stressing the 'something' in a way that makes my face grow hot.

Clearly, she is referring to the state she found us in that morning, and even though I should regret it, I don't.

Makoto told me off and said that I could have kept it in my pants for at least another 24 hours and maybe handled the whole situation better, but there was nothing that could convince me that what I did was wrong.

There was something freeing about her, about being around Kou. And when I was inside her, it was as if a piece of all she knew, all of her infinite wisdom about us and our future transferred over to me and as I held her, asleep in my arms, I realised just how quickly I had fallen for it all and fallen for her.

It was as if everything had always been this way, that it should be this way, and the unyielding belief that it was compels me to defend her even now.

"It's not — she just — _understands_ me," I reply, with lack of a better word.

I regret saying anything at all when I notice the moisture building up in the corners of Zaki's eyes.

"I _tried_ , Haru," she says, her voice no louder than a whisper. "More than you give me credit for. I've tried to make this work, to turn a blind eye whenever you stood me up and disappeared for days. I know that I can be a little too hot-headed for you sometimes, but..."

She blinks hard, to keep the tears from falling, and when she looks at me again with those big, brown eyes, all the life that once filled them was gone.

"...I always tried my best to understand you, Haru. You just wouldn't let me in."

Giving me the information I needed, Zaki asks me to leave and never speak to her again.

It is a fair request though I try to apologise to her once more; to tell her that I mean it when I say: _it's not you, it's me,_ but she puts her hands up and tells me that what's done is done. I go on my way, feeling even guiltier than before because I had no idea what I'd done to deserve the forgiveness from the women in my life.

Then I remember that I have yet to earn Kou's.

Zaki had provided me with her training schedule, confirming that the second years — including that of Mikoshiba Isuzu — had practice every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon at four.

This was vital information to me because the young swimmer had been guarding their apartment and tailing after Kou like a loyal Doberman for weeks, only leaving her side to go to their separate classes or practice.

The following Thursday afternoon, I leave my office and head to her apartment, stopping at the florist's on the way.

"Hot date tonight?"

Wrapped up in my own thoughts, it takes me a good thirty-seconds to conjure a reply.

The cashier has pink hair, a wide smile and a daffodil-shaped badge pinned to his green apron that says 'Kisumi.'

He means well, but his enthusiasm grates on me.

"Not really."

"I see," he laughs, wrapping the stems of twelve red roses in brown paper. "So you're in trouble, huh?"

He says this in a way that doesn't require much of a response, so I say nothing because it's none of his business and pass him my card to pay.

"I hope it goes well," Kisumi chimes, and even though fate has made it certain that it will — I thank him for the moral support.

Kou's apartment is situated in high-rise accommodation specifically built for students. It is functional but not fancy.

The lines and lines of grey coloured doors make it a tedious effort to find her particular unit, but when I do manage to locate apartment number 4042, I hesitate.

An odd feeling comes over me and I knock on the door before I decide to disappear.

It is merely a second later when Kou answers and is halfway out of her doorstep when I shove the bouquet of roses in front of her face.

She gives them a cursory glance and places a hand on her hip.

"What are those for?" she asks, and I can't help but state the obvious.

"They're for you."

Her mouth turns downwards and I'm sure she's going to slam the door in my face.

I brace myself for impact but to my surprise, Kou pushes aside the flowers and throws her arms around me instead.

Her tears are soaking into the shoulder of my shirt and at that moment, I vowed to never make her cry like this again.

I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her close.

"I broke up with her," I say, and feel her smile against my neck.

"I know."


	3. Part II: Friends and Family

**HARU — _Haru is 26, and 7._**

The way the spare key struggles into the lock of the front door reminds me that I don't visit my grandmother nearly as much as I should.

Letting myself into the hallway, I remove my shoes and take in the nostalgic smell of incense burning for my parent's photographs, mixed with the broth and spices of home-cooked food.

Sure enough, my grandmother herself appears, smaller, older, frailer than ever at the open doorway that leads through to the kitchen.

"Haru-chan," she looks me up and down. "Where are you coming from?"

I am not how to respond to that.

"Uh. Tokyo…?" I say unsurely, and she stares at me until something in her mind clicks into place.

Not a second later, she is beckoning me inside and into her warm embrace.

"Oh, look at you," she gushes, holding me tight. "My boy! It's been a long time!"

I notice that she has to tip-toe a little now to get her arms around my shoulders, and that her hair is greyer and thinning where it parts. Despite the fear of breaking her in two, I squeeze her just as hard and the guilt I felt earlier threatens to lash at the backs of my eyelids.

"I'm sorry, obaa-san," I say, with all the earnestness I can muster. "I really should visit more than once a year."

To my surprise, my grandmother chuckles and slaps my arm as if I were somehow in on the joke too.

"Don't be silly, you visit all the time," she says, but ushers me into the living room before I can ask her what she means.

My parents' house is near enough how they left it, my grandmother and I, afraid to stamp our personality on the place even after all these years in fear of making their deaths all the more real.

It is a simple, two-story detached country house situated in a cliffside town overlooking the city. Much hasn't changed since I moved out at eighteen; the living room wallpaper is still that forestry shade of green and couch is the same one I spilled soda all over when I was twelve. In the corner stood the bulky, 30-year-old TV set that I had once offered to replace with my first paycheck, but my grandmother told me not to bother because she only uses it to watch the news, anyways.

I settle myself down on the low coffee table and whilst she brewed a pot of tea for both of us.

"So," she smiles, handing me a steaming cup. "What do I owe this pleasure, Haruka-chan?"

I feign a scandalised look because _why would I need a reason to visit my only living relative?_ — but she sees right through me and quirks a brow.

"I'm getting married," I admit.

" _Really_?" she says it like it was the last thing in the world she was expecting to hear.

I shouldn't be insulted — because honestly, it's still a surprise to me too — but I can't help but frown at the single word that blatantly alluded to the fact that even my own grandmother was convinced I would live my life and die alone.

She recovers quickly, and I forgive her when I see the tears (of what I assume are joy) brimming in the corners of her eyes.

"What is her name?"

"Matsuoka," I can't help but smile. "Matsuoka Kou."

"And she…?"

"Yes, she knows everything," I reply, grimly. "Warts and all."

At last, I get the response I had expected, when my grandmother picks herself up from the floor and around the table to congratulate me properly.

"I'm so happy for you, my boy," she is sobbing into my shoulder at this point. "I didn't want to say anything...but I was worried. Worried who you would have after I…"

"Don't say things like that..."

"Oh don't be silly, Haru. You know I'm not getting any younger," she sniffs, but she's grinning. "I only hope to live long enough to meet my great-grandchildren!"

The alarm on the oven chimes just in time for me to bury that subject. I decide that it was probably best to tackle one, life-changing thing at a time.

Standing to its attention, my grandmother asks me to help her set the table and I am more than happy to oblige.

We are tucking into my favourite mackerel stew and she is pressing me for details about Kou when I belatedly remember the reason I was home in the first place.

"I'd like to give her mother's engagement ring, if you still have it," I announced. "And her wedding ring, too."

My grandmother's chopsticks paused halfway to her mouth.

"Wait. You haven't asked her yet?"

"No, but I know she'll say yes."

She looks as if she is going to ask me how but catches herself when she realises what I mean and we laugh, because what else was there to do but make light of my bizarre situation? She had always been good at that, particularly when I was young and scared and unsure as to what was even happening to me.

As if summoned, the sound like something landing heavily comes from the ceiling above us.

I immediately assume a break-in.

"Obaa-san. Do you have guests?"

She shrugs, her shoulders slight underneath her pinstripe apron.

"Probably."

I go to investigate but she tells me not to bother and soon enough, seven-year-old me is bounding down the stairway and tugging on one of my old blue jumpers.

My grandmother looks amused by my unsettled expression.

"And you always wondered why I held onto your old clothes!"

The younger me pokes his head through the kitchen doorway, appraising what should have been familiar surroundings but in reality, a completely different world.

He is skinny, his slight movements jilted like a prey animal being stalked, and his face was weathered like a child his age shouldn't have been.

My grandmother pulls out a chair.

"There you are. Are you hungry, Haru-chan?"

His pupils dart between me and the chair, blinking hard once or twice to confirm that I'm real before gingerly sliding into the seat next to mine.

As our grandmother fixes him a plate of food, I try to make small talk by asking what year he's coming from and if he and Makoto have started middle school yet.

Younger me doesn't say much. A vacant stare and the occasional, one-worded answer are the most I can get out of him; but then again, I should've known that this would be the case.

"Where's mum and dad?" he asks abruptly, and my stomach drops to my toes.

"They've gone out," my grandmother replies on my behalf, sending me a look as if to plead me to play along. "Food shopping. They'll be back soon."

The younger me stares at her for a timeless moment.

Despite my appearing painfully aloof, I was much more intuitive back then than most adults gave me credit for. I knew when they lied, even when they thought it was for the best.

Thankfully, he doesn't call her out on it and concentrates militantly on his mackerel stew like it's the only thing that's keeping him from breaking down.

I try to remember what I said to me, back when I was him and still unsure if my time-warping travels were real or a figure of my overactive imagination.

But what could you say to a miserable young boy who had no idea what was happening to him, or if anything in his life would ever be normal again?

I close my eyes and Kou's face appears in the darkness.

"Hey," I manage to smile. "It's gonna be ok."

* * *

**GOU — _Gou is 20._**

"I knew it! The man doesn't exist!"

Since the day I met my best friend Hazuki Nagisa, it seemed as if his favourite thing to do in the world was to piss me off.

Usually, I wouldn't let him get away with it — but it's already past ten in the evening and we're on our third or fourth round of drinks.

"He's just running late!" I say, and he shoots me a dubious look.

"Three hours late?" he questions back and I don't have an answer to that — at least, one he would believe.

It was the evening Haru was supposed to officially meet my friends and the man was currently unaccounted for. I had not heard from him since earlier that afternoon when I messaged him with the address of our local bar and received no response back.

Of course, I have an idea where he could be, or at least, what has happened to him.

Even so, I can't help my irritation at his absence, considering that my friends have been pestering me for weeks on end for a chance to 'meet the guy Gou is spending every waking hour with these days.'

Thankfully, Rei (Nagisa's new boyfriend and fast becoming my new favourite person) intervenes.

"Stop teasing her, Nagisa. Of course, the man exists." He turns to Hanamura Chigusa, a friend and classmate of mine, for her support. "Hey, Hana-chan. You've met him before, right?"

Hana sips at her martini and sends me an impish smile from over the rim of her glass.

She answers him before I can stop her from unleashing hell amongst our gathering of drunken college students.

"Yes," she says, unable to stop herself from grinning. "He's our marine biology lecturer."

And just like that, everyone around our table was screaming or grasping frantically for their phones to load up the university's homepage as fast as they could.

"No _freakin'_ way!"

"Who knew we had such a hot guy teaching at our school?!"

"Is that really him?"

Nagisa was on my case almost immediately.

"Matsuoka Gou, _you_ have some explaining to do."

I try and fail to appear unperturbed by all of the attention, but I can feel my cheeks growing hot. I take a big sip of my drink, a shot of liquid courage.

"What is there to explain?"

"I mean," Nagisa scoffs, "is what you're doing even _legal_?"

Before I manage to produce an innately violent reaction, Hana waves off his concerns.

"Nagisa, please. The man is only twenty-six, and it's not like Gou-chan is underage either…"

Her reasoning seems to have subdued everyone into a contemplative silence, realising that my relationship with my professor isn't as scandalous as they initially thought.

"Still, how do you do it?" Nagisa is persistent. "Does the school know about this?"

"We've...met before," I say, reasoning that this wasn't a complete lie. "I knew him even before I signed up for that class. The school doesn't know, and I don't think it would be a problem. I didn't realise he was a lecturer. We didn't really discuss it..."

"Maybe that's why he's not here tonight," Rei interjects, and though his logic is sound, I can't help but be discouraged when he adds: "he's probably wary about showing his face in student bars."

The lively chatter continues as I fall silent and nurse my drink.

I hadn't considered the possibility before, though I could see where Rei was coming from. Not only was Haru older than me, but he was mature for his age and tastes.

His relationship with Aki Yazaki comes to mind, a woman his senior by almost five years, and I highly doubted that she dragged him to rowdy bars to drink and dance.

In hindsight, Haru didn't seem like the type to socialise in such establishments.

Nagisa waved a flippant hand in my direction.

"Fuck him. Shall we order shots?"

I finish off my drink, grimacing as the alcohol tore at my throat.

"Yeah, why not?"

* * *

**HARU — _Haru is 26, Gou is 20._**

Kou is drunk.

By the time I get back from a visit to the early 2000's, I find that she has let herself into my apartment and is helping herself to my food.

She is sitting on my kitchen counter in her dress and heels and is slurping a cup of instant noodles noisily.

In spite of this, I notice that she looks very beautiful tonight.

Rarely does she have her hair down or bother to wear much makeup besides the bare minimum. Even though I feel guilty for messing up her plans, I can easily think of many other ways I could make it up to her.

Her pretty face pulls into a frown when she spots me, admiring her from the hallway.

"Where have you been?" she demands, mid-chew.

"2004," I reply, and I can tell she's trying not to be angry, given that I didn't really have much choice when or where I went.

Still, she says nothing and finishes off her noodles in one impressive gulp and I take that as permission to approach.

I run my palms across her shins and nestle myself between her thighs, loving the way she reacts to me, how her breathing hitches and her pores rise to my touch.

I move to smooth the hair away from her face, lifting it to mine before pressing my lips against hers.

She tastes salty, like the chicken broth in her soup.

"I'm sorry I missed meeting your friends."

She closes her eyes and rests her forehead against mine.

"There will be plenty of other opportunities," she says, followed by a sheepish smile. "Besides, I had a really good time without you."

I pull away to appraise her hooded eyes and the way she swayed a little in my arms.

"I'm sure you did."

"Uh-huh, it was so much fun," she says, leaning in for another kiss. She lowers her voice to a devilish whisper. "I drank and danced with _loads_ of other guys..."

And just like that, every muscle in my body tenses as an immediate reaction. I am seeing red. Kou has to wrench herself out of my grip, protesting that I'm hurting her.

"...By other guys, I meant Nagisa and his new boyfriend, Rei," she elucidates, astonishingly proud of the reaction she had goaded from me.

My grip slackens but I'm still annoyed.

"Why would you say it in that way, then?"

"To make you feel what I feel," she replies.

Before I can ask what she means, my concern is quickly overlooked when she leans in to kiss me once more and slips her hand past the waistband of my jeans.

"Kou—?"

"—Do you want me?" she murmured against my lips and after two beats, I answer by pushing the skirt of her dress further up her thighs and tearing her tights down to her ankles.

With the same urgency, she pulls my shirt over my head, undoes the buttons of my jeans and grips me tight through the material of my boxers.

I moan into her mouth, encouraging her sudden boldness as she pulls us close, all of her sexy angles pressing into my skin.

"What—" I manage, each word between a fervent kiss, "—has gotten into you today?"

I have her on the kitchen counter, and then again on the bed.

A part of me feels guilty for taking advantage of the fact that she may be too inebriated to realise what she is doing, but I quickly forget about that fact when she mounts me for the first time to let me sit back and enjoy the ride.

By the early hours of the morning, we are spent and thoroughly satisfied.

Kou is curled up under my chin and I think she is asleep when she asks, out of the blue:

"Haru. Do you think I'm immature?"

I blink, angling my head awkwardly to look her in the eye and gauge whether she is being serious or not.

"What do you mean?"

"Like I'm a kid."

I scoff.

"Kou. I wouldn't have done what I just did with someone I thought of as a kid—trust me."

To further authenticate my point, I tilted her face up to mine and press my lips against hers determinedly. My hand cradles the curve where her bottom meets her thighs and she sighs into my mouth, the sound revertibrating to the back of my throat.

I can't quite believe the excitement stirring up inside of me once again.

Kou hooks a leg over my hips, perfectly in tune with my thoughts and I'm on top of her again, our movements slow and gentle this time round, when I stop to appreciate the crimson fall of her hair against the white of my bed sheets and the moonlight kissing the tops of her breasts.

My hand splays and spreads down between them, her eyes drifting close as I travel further south.

Then, all of a sudden, she says something that makes me stop short of my destination between her legs.

"...It's just that sometimes I feel like a kid, standing next to you."

I rise up a little on my elbows to look at her, unsure on how to respond to that.

"When I was growing up, you were always older than me, wiser than me," she explains. "It's like you had all the answers and I didn't know a thing. I thought that when we'd finally be together it would feel a little different..."

I try to joke with her but my mind is reeling.

"You think I'm old?"

It's her turn to laugh, the sound easing some of the tension in my shoulders.

"No. I think you're perfect, Haru."

She seems to have dropped the subject when she kisses me again, encouraging me to continue in my previous ministrations. When she senses a residue of reluctance, she pulls away to place a reassuring hand on either side of her head.

"Forget what I said. You're everything I imagined you would be and more."

Kou says this with a smile that I can't quite return.

"I'm not perfect, Kou. You'll find that out soon enough."

* * *

**GOU. — _Gou is 21, Haru is 27._**

I can see Haru out of the corner of my eye, his undivided attention distracting my own from the stretch of road ahead towards home, to Iwatobi.

I can't say that this is entirely his fault: there isn't much to see between there and Tokyo but I can't help but tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear, feeling self-conscious when I should really be concentrating on getting us safely from A to B.

We stop at a set of traffic lights and I chance a glance at him. Blue eyes stare back at me, unashamedly.

I reach over the gear stick to palm at his jaw and avert his attention outside of the passenger window and elsewhere.

"Stop _staring_ at me, Haruka-senpai."

He laughs but eventually concedes, reaching over to the panel of dials on the dashboard to tune into a local radio station.

Haru says he loves to drive but for obvious reasons, he avoids it.

I've realised, after almost six months of dating, that there are a lot of things that Haru can't or won't risk doing. In the realm of fast moving transportation, flying is out of the question. He even avoids riding on trains, if he can help it.

So as we sit in comfortable silence for the rest of the drive, I begin to wonder whether if his glances at me in the driver's seat were in admiration or envy.

We pull up outside of my parent's house around mid-afternoon.

Though he did not utter a complaint the whole three hour journey down, Haru is tall so his legs must have been aching in the passenger seat of that that tiny rental car. He unstraps himself and walks around the drive to stretch them out and admire the seaside view.

Iwatobi is a picturesque little town off the coast of Kamakura. The population is less than two thousand. Everyone knows everyone, and nothing really happens here — but you can be sure of the fact that when something does, everyone and their grandmother's dog walker will know about it.

I come up beside Haru, who is shielding his eyes from the sun and squinting beyond the beach and into the horizon.

I lived here my entire life and saw the sea almost everyday, but I never stopped to appreciate it until now. Growing up, all I dreamt about was Tokyo, heart aching for the city where my soulmate was waiting for me.

"Is it familiar?" I ask him, realising this isn't technically the first time he's visited this little corner of Japan.

"Somewhat," he replies, breathlessly. "It feels more like somewhere I've been in a dream..."

"I think there's a word for that," I tap at my chin in thought. "Déjà vu, right?"

He smiles and reaches an arm around my shoulders.

"Story of my life."

Mother must have heard us coming because the front door swings open before I can find my keys at the bottom of my bag.

She throws her arms around me and offers Haru similar treatment, and I can't help but laugh because I know what Haru's like when it comes to unexpected physical contact.

"It's so lovely to finally meet you, Nanase-san!"

She holds him at arm's length, gaze shifting between us proudly before she ushers Haruka into the hallway after her.

Haru bends down to remove his shoes and my mother she mouths: _"he's cute!"_ over his head. I stifle a giggle that comes out as an unattractive snorting noise instead.

Today is a special day because my mother has never had the experience of one of her children bringing a significant other back to our home.

My brother moved to Australia as a teen and details of his personal life were always scarce, so she fawns over Haru like a long lost son, fussing over his tea and quizzing him on his dietary requirements and shooting me a disappointed look for 'forgetting' to tell her that his favourite food is mackerel.

"Gou, your brother landed an hour ago," my mother finally turns her attention to me — her only daughter who she hasn't seen in months — and that was only because Haruka had asked to use the restroom. "Yamazaki-kun is kindly picking him up from the airport. I said that he could stay for dinner too."

"Ah," I stiffen. "Quite the reunion," I add bleakly, but before I can comment any further, Haru returns, catching the tail end of the conversation. My mother decides to take this opportunity to thrust a photo album onto his lap, one filled with old pictures of Rin and I between the ages of two and five.

I am stewing in my seat, praying to god that she had the sense to omit the ones of my brother and I in the paddling pool _sans_ swimwear, until Haru points someone out and asks who they are due to the frequency in which they appear in my childhood.

"Oh, that's Yamazaki Sousuke," my mother replies. "Rin's best friend since before they could walk. I was just telling Gou that he'll be joining us for dinner."

Haru looks across the coffee table at me and it feels like the blood in my veins run cold.

He smiles and I smile back, shaking away this feeling because: _how in the world would he know?_

"Kou has never mentioned him before," he says, without any implication at all and I think I am safe — until he turns to the next page of the album where a picture of my father is displayed: tall, handsome and smiling, with mini Rin and I hanging off each one of his biceps.

"Will Mr. Matsuoka be joining us too?"

It is one of those moments where I wish there was something like a reset button that I could press on the day or at least rewind to an hour back.

I look to my mother nervously.

Her throat flashes and I can tell that she's trying not to cry.

It is difficult to see it now, but my mother was a vibrant, beautiful woman, inside and out. She is like my older brother in that way; people tended to gravitate towards her energy which was never quite the same after my father's accident.

It got better with time, of course — that tended to be the case for us all — but his sudden passing still manages to reduce her to tears in the right circumstance.

I can't tell what she is thinking: how lovely it would have been if he were here, to meet Haru, the man I'm going to marry eventually.

"I, uh," I interject, the atmosphere thick with tension. "Haru. My father died when I was five..."

Haru is, understandably, mortified.

"I—I'm so sorry, I didn't—"

"—It's alright," mother stands abruptly, taking with her the tray of cold tea and biscuits. "You didn't know...and you and Gou have only been dating for almost...half a year right? These things can be...missed..."

She is mumbling, in that way that she does when her reality begins to blur and after returning from a brief respite in the kitchen next door, tells me that she needs to lie down and asks if I would be a dear and wake her up when Rin and Sousuke get back?

Her bedroom door shuts quietly behind her before Haru and I can think to speak.

He glowers at me and I slink back into the sofa, wishing it would swallow me whole.

"A little heads up on that would have been nice, Kou."

* * *

**HARU. — _Haru is 27, Gou is 21, and 17._**

I've never cared much for first impressions. Or seconds, or thirds.

I figured from an early age that people would come and go and those who stuck around long enough would sense that something 'off' with me eventually.

Even so, I really hoped that Kou's mother would like me for at least a full hour before coming to that conclusion.

We decide to go for a walk, to our alcove on the beach, for a little privacy whilst we 'talked' — which was code for blowing off some steam.

I strode ahead with Kou struggling to match my irritated pace, kicking at a pebble with the toe of my shoe and sending it flying with a cloud of dust and sand across the beach ahead of us.

"Haru, I said I'm sorry already!"

She grabs at the sleeve of my coat and I revert my expression to a neutral before I face her.

I know that it's not her fault — she probably has a good explanation for omitting this monumentally important piece of information — but I can't help but feel annoyed with her carelessness all the same.

"I'm sorry, I forgot that you...in this current timeline doesn't know," she explained, as if she read my mind. "We talked about my father a lot when I was a kid. You counselled me and helped me get over the loss. I didn't think to mention it because in my head you already knew."

Kou says this, with a face that mirrors her mothers. Like the memory still stings at that backs of her eyelids and just like that, I forgive her.

I know very well what it is like to be made to relive painful memories. I've watched my parents burn in that car crash more than a thousand times.

"My mother," she adds, "I'm sure she didn't mean to act so cold. It took her a long time to come to terms with it, a lot of therapy and medication which she still takes today. I don't think—I don't think she'll ever really move on..."

"Kou, it's ok—" I begin with a step to close the space between us, but then, in a blink of an eye, I am gone.

My vision blurs with the feeling of weightlessness. It is like endless spinning without gravity and when I do finally regain my footing, I find myself on the sand again, in the same place, but a different time.

It is warmer, late summer compared to the winter temperature I just came from. The sun is beating down on my skin, high in the sky.

Kou is already here. She is wearing a two piece swimsuit with a sarong tied around her waist and she tells me that she is seventeen.

She makes an effort to not stare when she hands me some of her brothers old clothes, but I can feel her eyes drinking in every inch of skin she can see, even as I turn my back on her to maintain a measure of modesty.

I know that look, I know what she wants and what she is thinking. And though I'm not about to fool around with a Kou ten years my junior, I don't think it hurts to greet her with a short kiss before she unpacks her picnic basket and quizzes me about the future like she always does.

When I pull away, she looks taken aback.

"What?" I ask, watching the blood rush to her cheeks.

"It's just—" she squeaks. "—You've never kissed me before, Haruka-senpai."

I release her like a hot potato.

Oh, _shit_.

"Sorry," I blurted out before I could think it though. "We just had an argument, back where I came from."

Kou looks devastated by this information.

"We're arguing? Again?"

_Again?_ I want to ask what about, but decided I'd rather not know and tackle each problem as it comes.

"Yeah, I…kinda left before we could make up..."

She nods, accepting the explanation for my earlier actions as some sort of penance to my present Kou who is probably freaking out on the same beach in the future, holding a bunch of my clothes.

Even so, she looks pleased with herself, giddily seating herself closer to me on our picnic blanket than she usually does during these encounters, her bare shoulders brushing and thighs sidling against mine.

"Kou," I ask, when we are settled and sunbathing. "What happened to your father?"

A look of surprise crosses her face before it is replaced with the same sadness from before. I instantly regret bringing the topic up for the second time that day.

She takes a moment, looking out towards the coastline, at the steady stream of waves and foam cascading onto the sand as she formulates her answer.

"He was a fisherman" she finally replies. "A captain, actually. His ship capsized during a during a particularly bad storm and he died trying to save his crew."

For a moment, I am speechless. I could not have thought up anything worse.

Feeling apologetic for making her recount such a tragic story, I reach out to her; to squeeze her hand and tell her that I'm sorry, but Kou tears herself away and begins unpacking our lunch as if to occupy her thoughts.

"It happened a long time ago," she adds, braving a smile. "To be honest, I was so young when it happened, I hardly remember him. "

"Even so," I manage. "It must have been a shock — for you and your family."

She nods, unable to bring herself to respond and ducks her face behind her bangs instead.

Desperately, I think of something else to say to change the subject or something I can do to make amends.

I remember that it made her happy that I kissed her earlier. And in that moment, I think I would feel much better about myself if I kissed her again too.

She stiffens at first, the contact unexpected but not entirely unwelcome and she recovers from the surprise of it quickly: pressing her puckered mouth against mine with youthful enthusiasm.

I can tell that she hasn't had much practice at this stage of her life, because she jumps when my tongue runs along the line of her compressed lips and she isn't quite sure what to do with herself.

Foolishly perhaps, I decide to offer some instruction, murmuring the words against the skin of her jawline:

"Open your mouth, Kou. I want to put my tongue in you."

Her eyes widened, pupils dilated and all the more amazing up close.

Her cheeks are red and she seems to overthinking things like she usually does, but I know I haven't scared her off because from my experience, Kou likes it when I talk dirty.

As expected, her eyelids fall heavy with unconcealed hunger and she closes the gap between our faces within a span of a breath.

I let her take the lead, fingers grappling at the back of my shirt as our kisses deepened. The next thing I know, she is pressing her unbound chest against me in a determined manner, and is scrambling to get on top of me to straddle my lap.

I have to physically push her off of me, before we got too carried away.

She slides off my lap with obvious reluctance. Her breath comes heavy, and her chest is heaving underneath that skimpy swimsuit of hers.

"Did I do something wrong?" she asks.

"No," I realise that I'm just as confused as she is. I run a hand through my hair and shift to create some space between us. "I mean, not really. That was—fine. It's just...Kou, you're still so young…"

She pouts, lunging towards me on her hands and knees and the position is very provocative.

"I'm not," she protests, appearing all the more adolescent to me already. "All of my friends have done it. I'm the only one who hasn't!"

"Kou, that—that isn't a good reason to want to have sex—"

"—The fact that we love each other and are going to get married anyways is a good enough reason," she parries smoothly.

Damn it, I think, why is she so smart?

Even at this age, Kou has an answer for everything.

"I'm not going to have sex with you, Kou," I answer doggedly, and the girl looks as if she is on the verge of a toddler-like tantrum.

"You will eventually," she grumbles under her breath. "What difference does it make if we do it now?"

"Kou—drop it."

I cross my arms and hold her gaze until she cracks, throwing her arms up in the air in an exasperated gesture as if I am the one acting unreasonable.

"Fine!" she says, straightening up to leave, and I realise at that moment that I've somehow managed to upset two Kou's in one day.

I drag my hand down the length of my face.

This has got to be some sort of world record, right?

"Where are you going?" I ask, watching her pack up her things.

The usual love and care she puts into our little picnic lunches goes straight out of the window when she grabs my unfinished plate and chucks it into the basket, food first.

"Home!" she snaps, so I grabbed at her wrist before she can escape without an explanation.

"You're leaving because I won't have _sex_ with you?" I say, my tone incredulous despite the slight humour underlying my question.

"No!"

She is lying, and she knows how absurd she is being. Still, she persists in glaring at me over her shoulder as she accused:

"Clearly, you don't love me like I love you!"

That being the last line of stupidity that I can bring myself to tolerate today, I tugged Kou towards me sharply and let her back fall against my chest.

"I do love you, Kou," I say to her, the words like magic because I can feel her relax against me already. "You have no idea how much. But the woman I love the most is in my present, waiting for me and probably worried sick..."

The girl in my arms is silent, and there is nothing but the sound of the sea between us.

Eventually, she looks up at me, her forehead tucking gently underneath my chin.

"Ok, I'm sorry. I got...carried away," she says, and I don't disagree with her. She sighs as she explains, "it's just—so frustrating. Being jealous of myself."

"What do you mean?" I ask her and she pouts, so unbelievably cute that I squeeze her shoulders tight and bury my face in her neck.

"I hate being young, taking the slow path. I just want to be her already."

"You shouldn't wish your life away," I reminded her. "Enjoy being young and carefree. Make friends and memories and have good experiences..."

I realise I am listing the things I did not have the luxury of at her age, so she doesn't seem totally convinced by my reasoning but concedes defeat.

I think that she has dropped the subject, until she asks: "Do you enjoy sex with me?" rather boldly, though her voice is hesitant and small. "I mean, in the future?" she adds, as if I didn't know what she meant.

I laugh and lower my mouth next to her ear

"Yes, of course," I answer. "We fuck all the time."

"We do?" Kou squeaks and I laugh and press my lips against the hair on the side of her head.

"Yes. And it is worth the wait, trust me."

For once, Kou has nothing to say to that and I can feel the heat of her embarrassment practically emanating off of her skin.

"You're a tease," she says, and we laugh so much I can feel myself slipping away in the bliss.

"Kou," I warn, my surroundings fall into pieces around us. "I'm going back."

She twists in my arms and angles her head towards me, her smiling face the last thing I see.

"Kiss me goodbye?" she says, and I am more than happy to oblige.

* * *

**GOU. — _Gou is 21, Haru is 27._**

There is no telling when Haru will go, how long he will be and when he'll be coming back.

He could be gone for days at a time or sometimes just minutes, disappearing from our bed and appearing not a moment later in the living room couch.

He would slip back under the covers with me and I wouldn't even notice that he was gone, asking where he went and expecting him to tell me: "the bathroom" instead of: "a quick trip to 1994."

No matter how long he is gone for however, I hate watching him leave.

It is because he goes sadly, reluctantly, and when he leaves this time our apologies are unfinished and it throws me into a state of panic, grabbing up the clothes as he materialises out of them and eyes scanning our immediate surroundings in hopes that no one has spotted us.

Thankfully, there isn't a soul around because of the biting autumn breeze and the slight cover of our alcove shielding us from the rest of the town.

Selfishly, I begin to think about dinner; about my brother who is on the way and what I'd say to my mother if Haru doesn't return in time.

Unsure what to do with myself, I paced the length of the beach wondering whether I should head back or wait to see whether he will return.

Eventually, he does: naked as always but unharmed, in one piece. I drop the armful of his clothes and rush towards him. He catches me with an audible 'oof.'

I release him, only when he complains that his balls are freezing off.

"How long was I gone for?" he asks, pulling his trousers back on with a little difficulty on the uneven sand.

"Just over fifteen minutes." I reply. "Where did you go?"

"Here, but four years ago." He looks amused. "I don't know if you remember, but you tried to rape me."

I gape at him dumbly, about to claim no such occurrence until the memory returns and my face turns the colour of my hair.

"I did not!"

Haru laughs and doubles over when I go to hit him in the stomach, grabbing up my hands in his before I can strike him again in retribution.

He is still in hysterics, and because I love the sound of his laugh, I kiss him: on his shoulders at first and then his jaw, until his mouth meshes with mine and, well — let's say, he really shouldn't have bothered putting his clothes back on.

The amount of times I've fantasised about him to fucking me on this beach makes it difficult to withstand its occurrence in silence.

Haru clamps a hand over my mouth when I am being particularly vocal, though he is grinning whilst he pushes aside my clothes and pushes himself inside of me, rather than wait the extra second to remove them.

I am shaking the sand from my hair, from the hood of my jacket and am glad that Haru is finally fully dressed by the time I spotted two figures, making their way towards us from across the pier.

One of them waves, calling me 'Gou'.

"Is that your brother?" Haru squints at the approaching head of red hair. "Who is that with him?"

I slip my hand into his, an unconscious reassurance.

"Sousuke-kun," I say.

* * *

**HARU. — _Haru is 27, Gou is 21._**

After all the stories I had heard about him, I do admit that I was most nervous about meeting Matsuoka Rin.

He was supposedly this overbearing, stereotypical older brother figure, making Kou's life increasingly more difficult the older she got. Sometimes, he would make her late to our meetings on the beach, because he wouldn't stop trying to follow her and she just couldn't 'shake him off'.

But to my surprise, and possibly Kou's, the man greets me with open arms and after a few, playful jabs at me for 'making the moves on his sister', Rin practically thanks me for taking her off his hands.

"I was getting worried, to be honest," he admits, later at dinner — much to Kou's disdain. "I was beginning to think that you weren't as interested in muscles as you made yourself out to be!"

The table laughs at the expense of the girl sitting next to me, stewing in her seat.

"Ah, I guess I can't complain," Rin continues in good humour. "I had an easy gig. Never had to worry about chasing guys off because Gou wouldn't give them the time of day…!"

The man glances over at me, not quite in suspicion but in a way that transparently wondered what it was about me that made me so special.

Besides that moment, the rest of the meal goes by without a hitch.

Kou's mother has since recovered from my earlier disaster and is back to fawning and fussing over me as her guest of honour. Nevertheless, I try to apologise to her again in the privacy of the kitchen whilst helping her carry out the empty dishes, but she waved off my concerns and understood I meant no harm.

I also knew from Kou that Rin was currently living in Australia to train and swim in competitions and eventually, the world stage.

He is only a couple of years older than her so is still in his prime and I am more than happy to indulge in his stories and training regimens over dessert, even though it makes me feel a little envious.

"Haru used to compete too," Kou pipes up on my behalf. "Before he...decided to teach instead."

This seems to have piqued Rin's interest and he gives me a once over. I can tell he's trying to figure it out before asking me outright:

"What did you race?"

"Free," I say with confidence.

Kou boasts about how good I am and Rin smirks.

"I need to see this," he says, and I'm not sure what he means.

Still in the dark, Rin reaches for his phone and starts typing a message whilst Kou whines: "onii-chan~", though her protests do nothing to deter him.

"Coach Sasabe says he'll keep the pool open for us for another hour," he announces, a mischievous glint in his eye. "What do you say?"

It takes me two beats to realise that he wants to race so I look to Kou for guidance and she shrugs and rolls her eyes as if to say: it's your funeral.

In the end, I agree, partly because it'll be nice to swim after what has turned out to have been quite a stressful day, but mostly because I want to find out if Rin is actually as fast as he claims to be.

"Sousuke, you should join them," Kou says, reminding me of the presence of the other male in the room. She turns to me and explains, after my questioning expression: "Sousuke used to swim competitively too. 100m butterfly, mostly."

The man says nothing to indicate otherwise, so I figure what she said was true. In hindsight, it was easy to tell with a trained eye, from the swell of his shoulders and the broadness of his back.

Despite his size and brooding presence, Yamazaki Sousuke had been quite forgettable for a large part of the meal.

He never spoke up unless he was asked and didn't seem at all interested in getting to know me, except in those times I caught him glancing in my direction with an expression I couldn't quite decipher.

"Actually, I was hoping to catch up with Gou," he says, to both of our surprise.

I know this is the first she's heard of it too because Kou's brows seem to have risen halfway to her hairline when he turns to her to officially ask:

"Do you want to go for a walk or something after dinner?"

"Are you sure you don't want to swim?" she says, dealing me a sideways glance. "I really don't mind tagging along."

"It's been awhile since we've...caught up," he says, and something in his tone seems to have persuaded her.

Kou turns to me to ask: "Will you be ok alone with my brother, Haru?" and Rin protests that 'of course he'll be ok!' before I can get a word in otherwise.

Soon enough, the four of us are parting ways in the drive — a little reluctantly, on my part.

Kou kisses me on the cheek, a silent reassurance, before she skips after Yamazaki-kun who was already gone ahead and was halfway down the road.

I watch the two of them, walking side by side in perfect stride, the image for some reason leaving me with a peculiar feeling simmering at the bottom of my gut.

* * *

**GOU. — _Gou is 21._**

"So, Nanase-san. He seems...nice."

Sousuke suggested that we walk into town and get a hot drink. On the way, he speaks only to check in on me every now and then, concerned about my choice of outerwear and worried that I'd catch a cold.

Where Rin was loud and boisterous, Sousuke was his more serious counterpart and is not one to beat around the bush.

Therefore, I am not at all surprised by how quickly the topic of Haru comes up, pretty much as soon the waitress delivers our hot chocolates to the table.

"Thank you," I say, to the both of them. I'm not sure what to say to Sousuke's statement, really.

"He seems—" the man pauses to find the right word. "—Familiar."

"Oh?" I say, feigning innocence, and he nods assuredly, confident in his next words.

"Are you sure you haven't met him before...before you moved to Tokyo?"

I regard him with an expression of incredulity that doesn't feel at all genuine even though I can't see it.

"How could I have had?" I ask, my pitch unusually high. "You know I've never been anywhere else but here and Tokyo. And Haru's has never visited Iwatobi before—"

"—Gou, let's cut the crap," Sousuke interrupts me with an impatience that I do not recognise. "How am I supposed to forget the face of the man who saved you when you almost drowned yourself at the local pool?"

"What?" I am, at this point, sweating. "Sousuke, that was years ago! You must be mistaken—"

"—He hasn't aged a day," he cuts into my sentence with surgical precision. His teal eyes are begging for my honesty. "Gou. What the hell is going on? Who is he? What... _is_ he?"

Sousuke has always been patient with me, more so than Rin who would quickly bore of me and my childish spiels. And knowing how he can be and that he would not back down, I decide to start from the beginning.

I tell him everything: from the day Haru saved me to his intermittent visits during my youth, to finally meeting him in Tokyo where he said he would be and how long I've been waiting for us to be together.

Our drinks are cold by the time I finish recounting the last sixteen or so years of my life but I gulp it down anyways, just for something to do in the silence that followed.

Sousuke had listened to my story patiently, without comment or question, and even though he nodded along, concern in his eyes, it feels as though he is going to put me in a straitjacket and check me to a hospital to be examined by a psychological professional.

But instead, he says something unexpected and even more shocking that it knocks the air from my lungs:

"Don't marry him, Gou."

"He hasn't asked," I replied indignantly.

"But he will," Sousuke says, as confident as ever. "I see the way he looks at you. I see the way you look at him. But you shouldn't marry him, Gou. For your own happiness."

I have never seen Souuske beg before, or look this sad or desperate even though I accompanied him to the doctors appointment where he found out that his shoulder was too injured to continue swimming competitively.

And I know that because of this, he is being serious in his advice. Him being one of my best and oldest friends makes me hesitate in a way I never would have done before when it came to the topic of Haru.

"Your mother said that you didn't tell him about your father," Sousuke adds in my stupor. He appears baffled, "how can you marry someone who doesn't know you at all?"

"He knows me the most," I say, finally finding my voice and Sousuke scoffs and sets his jaw at me.

"Only because he's had more than a decades head start."

His ruthlessness tone astounds me. I feel my eyes begin to sting and I swallow down the tears rising to the back of my throat.

"Why...why are you saying these things?"

"Because you deserve better," Sousuke replies very simply, and I can feel my forehead crease with the effort to decode that statement.

"What do you mean?" I eventually ask, but before he can explain himself, waitress approaches to ask if everything is ok with our drinks.

I smile through the awkwardness of it all as she lingers, clearly interested in the man that I am with even though he doesn't seem to have the time for her right now.

Sousuke's gaze was fixed on mine: his dark features hardening and heart-wrenchingly persuasive.

"Seriously, Gou?" he says when she departs (in a huff). "There isn't a person in the world that would want someone like him. The waiting, the uncertainty...waking up one day with him gone and not knowing when he'll be back—"

"—I'm fine. I'll be fine," I repeat it like a mantra to live by. "Sousuke, you don't understand. I've been waiting for Haru my whole life and he's finally here! Why can't you be happy for me?"

"Because I love you, Gou," he says, and it is like driving a dagger into my chest. "And I don't want to see you get hurt."

His hand reaches across the table for mine, his touch familiar and everything I remember it to be.

He runs his thumb over my knuckles and I feel my eyes drifting close, until I see Haru's face appear on the backs of my eyelids.

I snatch my hand back, unable to help the hurt expression cross Sousuke's face when I do.

"I can't, it's done," I tell him with a tone of finality. "I know it sounds ridiculous but my future with him is set in stone. We're meant to be together and there's nothing I can do about it."

He draws back, appearing disappointed — maybe even a little sorry for me.

"So you're saying that you don't have a choice?" he asks, and I'm not quite sure what to say to that.

* * *

**HARU. — _Haru is 27, Gou is 21._**

Rin and I return back at the house from Iwatobi's local swimming pool after my (very close) defeat.

I learn quickly that Rin isn't the type of person that would let you live it down if you lose, so against my better judgement, we agree to a rematch over the course of the week that Kou and I are back in Iwatobi.

By the time we arrive, Kou is has also returned and Yamazaki has gone home for the evening too. I am relieved, for some reason, to find her alone and unscathed.

Upon Rin's insistence, I am relegated to a futon in the guest bedroom when we turn in for the night, but this doesn't stop Kou from sneaking in to see me not long after lights off.

"Hey, you," I reach out to her, the length of her body warm and welcome against mine.

We are quiet, conscious of the shifting of the sheets and every small creak of the mattress beneath us.

I feel like a teenager again, fooling around with the hottest girl in school while her parents are asleep in the room next door. And I know that Kou is buying into the fantasy too when her fingernails dig deep into my back and how her muted gasps get louder and throatier the more our passion becomes unbridled.

"Haru, I need to talk to you about something," she then says, before I've barely caught my breath.

She goes to switch on the lamp on in the corner of the room, apparently needing to see my reaction to whatever she has to say, so I know that it is something serious.

"What is it?" I press when our eyes focus in the sudden brightness and she can't bring herself to look at me.

Kou presses her lips together, still bruised and red from my earlier assault on them.

"I...I slept with Sousuke-kun," she says.

I admit to having suffered through bouts of possessiveness when it came to Kou, but it was nothing I couldn't handle in a collected and reasonable manner.

I would force my thoughts aside or talk it through with her if needed, but in failing that (because communication was never my strong point) I would make a point of reminding her who she belongs to, of fucking her until she can still feel me for hours afterwards.

This, however, was something on a different level that cannot be fixed by conversation or even a rough fuck.

This news fills me with a sense of betrayal and murderous intent, because I _fucking knew_ that something was off with him and with the both of them.

"When?" I manage to bite out. "Today?"

"No, of course not!" Kou gasps, her tone incredulous, as if I am the one in the wrong for even thinking it.

Cautiously, she advances towards me, placing a hand on either side of my head and knotting her delicate fingers into my hair.

"It happened before I met you — I mean, _properly_."

This piece of information is slightly reassuring but is not enough to stop my skin from crawling at the thought of someone else's hands on hers.

Against my volition, my mind reels with images and questions I didn't want to know the answer to.

Was he bigger than me, did he feel better than me, did he make her come? How many times did they do it? Does he know all the spots that make her toes curl and scream his name?

Disgusted, I detach myself from arms and lift myself off the bed, pacing the entire length of it four or five times because I'm not quite sure what to do with this information.

Kou crawls over the duvet after me, her desperation tangible in the tone of her voice.

"Haru — I was eighteen and I was drunk. It happened before I moved for college and before you even knew who I was." Finally, I look at her and find her almost on the verge of tears. "I...I was being stupid, I was feeling lonely without you. It meant nothing, I promise."

A part of me wants to ask why she bothered telling me if it didn't — the revelation achieving nothing else but the impulse to scrutinise every interaction they had shared over dinner: of the way his stare softened whenever she looked his way or how she would let him stand closer to her than any of her other male friends, allowing him to enter her orbit like he belonged there — like he was still a part of her universe.

How could I believe that whatever happened between them meant nothing, when right now it felt like everything?

"Look, just forget I ever brought it up," Kou insists. Her voice hushed and desperate for this conversation to not escalate above whispering level. "It's—it's really not that big a deal."

And that's when I explode.

"Not a big deal?!" I resist the urge to throw a lamp across the room. "You slept with someone else!"

"It's not like you weren't sleeping with other people before we met!" she says in her defence, and though she makes a fair point, the argument only adds to my rage.

"But you—you _knew_ about me—" I manage, trying not to sound hypocritical but failing.

I parked myself on the edge of the desk that lined her far wall of the room, head in my hands as I tried to think this through.

I am shattered. Absolutely heartbroken.

I almost believe I can never look at her the same way again, until the judicious part of my brain reminds me that when Kou was eighteen, I had just turned twenty-four and my coach, who had lost all patience with me and my time-travelling antics, broke the news that he was done chasing after someone who didn't take his swimming seriously.

When Kou was finding comfort in another man's arms, I too was getting drunk every other night, sometimes with Makoto and sometimes alone, wallowing in my own self-pity and warming my bed with a different girl each week to make myself feel something else but emptiness.

And I admit: sometimes Kou and I are so caught up in my own sporadic travels and I forget to think of what it is like for her.

Not just the waiting and worrying if I'll get back to her in one piece — but to know exactly how her life is going to turn out, all because of me.

How did that make her feel, I wondered?

She always claimed that she was lucky to have me, that she never stressed about her future because she knew that happiness was guaranteed, but my thoughts revert back to that seventeen year old I had met on the beach in the summer, earlier today.

I think that if someone told me that I was destined to be with this person, no questions asked, I would have a hard time coming to terms with it too.

Naturally, she would have wanted to rebel.

Her life was no more normal than mine. How could I have expected her to wait? I even refused to have sex with her, and my advice was to tell her to slow down and enjoy her youth.

It was hard to come to terms with but Kou was right: whatever happened between them was in the past, and her's is a lot less tangible than mine — one that she does not have to relive if she doesn't want to.

_As long as she doesn't want to._

_As long as she wants me,_ I think.

_As long as she will only ever want me._

I realise that the stretch of silence has reduced us both to tears.

Without knowing what to say, I reach into my backpack discarded on the floor next to the bed, to the inside pocket where a velvet lined box was hidden safely away.

I take it out and place it on the mattress between us, unopened.

It takes her a while to put two and two together, the current atmosphere completely erasing its greater implications.

She licks her lips to wet them before she speaks.

"Are you asking me to…?"

"Yes," I nod and to my dismay, she reacts with a grimace.

"Do I have a choice?"

My throat contracts and my heart beat shifts and it feels like my entire world is about to crumble in her hands.

I sent her a pained look. "Of course you do," but my voice is shaking — until she nods and takes the box to open it, revealing the oval cut ring of my late mothers, a brilliant diamond cushioned by smaller sapphire stones.

Not a second later, she throws her arms around my neck and I hold on to her so tightly, as if to make sure that nothing will come between us ever again.

"I know I do, and I choose you, Haru," she says. "It's always been you."


End file.
